Iraqi bookseller now flying high / Under Hussein, publishing was strictly controlled

Jill Carroll, Chronicle Foreign Service

Published 4:00 am, Friday, November 28, 2003

Photo: HUSSEIN MALLA

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Iraqis buying used books at al-Motanabi street in Baghdad, Iraq, on Monday, July 8, 2002. Iraqis are compelled to resort to the old and used books because of the closure of the printing houses, partly due to the U.N. 12-year sanctions imposed on Iraq for its invasion of Kuwait in1990. (AP Photo /Hussein Malla) Iraqi residents buy used books, which were tightly controlled under Saddam Hussein, on al-Motanabi Street in Baghdad. Iraqi residents buy used books, which were tightly controlled under Saddam Hussein, on al-Motanabi Street in Baghdad. less

Iraqis buying used books at al-Motanabi street in Baghdad, Iraq, on Monday, July 8, 2002. Iraqis are compelled to resort to the old and used books because of the closure of the printing houses, partly due to ... more

Photo: HUSSEIN MALLA

Iraqi bookseller now flying high / Under Hussein, publishing was strictly controlled

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2003-11-28 04:00:00 PDT Baghdad -- Naeem al-Shatry stands on a curb, enticing passers-by to view his books neatly displayed along a city sidewalk.

"A house without books is like a desert without people," he calls out to a gathering crowd. "Egypt writes, Beirut publishes and Baghdad reads."

Al-Shatry, 64, has been selling books for 45 years and claims to be the first merchant to display them on the ground in front of his closet-sized shop,

a tactic now used by nearly every bookseller in Baghdad. In a good month, he earns $200 selling fiction, poems, essays, old newspapers and historical documents.

"I am not only happy, I am flying in the sky," he said. "I had a bad time before the war. Some days, I didn't earn enough money to buy myself lunch."

For as long as anyone here can remember, the Iraqi intelligentsia have come to the al-Mutanabi market every Friday to buy books and debate their merits while smoking water pipes and drinking coffee or sweet tea at the nearby Shahbandar cafe. The market, named after a 10th century poet who had delusions of being a prophet, is just steps away from al Mustansiriya University, one of the oldest learning centers in the Arab world.

Under Saddam Hussein, the publishing of books and newspapers was strictly controlled. There were few books on religion, history or any subject deemed seditious by the Mukhabarat, or secret police. In 1999, al-Shatry says he was jailed for four months for selling a Communist Party newspaper to an Iraqi Kurd.

High on the censored list were books relating to the Shiite faith, the majority branch of Islam in Iraq which was often persecuted by Hussein's minority Sunni regime. Sabbah Michael, 48, who has peddled books at the al- Mutanabi market for 15 years and also teaches Arabic and Christian studies at Babel University, says Shiite religious texts -- which could only be purchased under the table during the Hussein years -- are now his biggest sellers.

At his store, religious books intermingle with 20-year-old magazines, children's books, histories of Iraq and posters of Imam Ali, the Shiite patriarch.

Jawad Sadik Mohammed, who comes to the book market with his son to shop, as they have done for years, recalled that Mukhabarat agents often searched for hidden books just to extract bribes.

"Everyone, even Saddam Hussein knew. They would blackmail them," Mohammed said. Buyers also took a big risk, he said, since "a lot of sellers were in the secret police."

Al-Shatry tearfully recalls how he bought personal libraries from financially-strapped Iraqis after U.N. economic sanctions were imposed in the wake of the first Gulf war. He chokes up and retreats inside his little store when he describes how Iraqis sold off anything they could to survive, including rare Arabic texts.

"It was a crime to see the Iraqi people suffer and sell their books. These books are precious," he said.

"You can see Iraq in his tears," said Saleem Sheikhly, a friend and writer. "He cries for intellectuals and writers who were in a bad situation."

Sheikhly is familiar with bad situations. He fled to Kuwait 27 years ago for being a member of the Communist Party. There, he published poems and short stories under the pen name of Fahed Jamal to protect his family inside Iraq from punishment.

Holding up a copy of his book published in 2002, he pointed to a new white sticker emblazoned with his name that covered his nom de plume. "I was afraid not for myself but for my family," he said. But these days "I am proud of my name."

Meanwhile, the destitute, even in post-Hussein Baghdad continue to hawk their personal libraries. Sheikhly says new freedoms have yet to translate into a better life for many Iraqis and "the majority of books here are sold by people just to buy bread."

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The book peddler, Sabbah Michael, put it another way.

"The Iraqi people are still lost," he said. "The situation is still not stable enough to read books yet."

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